Helping others to help ourselves...

Why is it so easy for me to give advice to someone else in a similar situation as me...but when it comes to chewing on this advice myself i cant stomach it? That when someone else gives me a helping hand up, i take it willingly only to sit back down when they let go?

I see a lot of posts with people in similar situations. We seem to want to help each other and receive help, but not help ourselves. Am i that afraid? Are we that afraid?

So i have a proposal...and it may fall upon deaf ears and thats ok too i am just throwing it out there. I suggest that for every piece of advice we give someone, we ourselves walk the walk as well. For every word of encouragement we throw at someone in need of it, we turn that into something that we can use to better our own lives. That every time i tell someone to think of a reason why they should not commit suicide, i should do the same. When i suggest setting a goal in your life, I turn around and set a goal in my own. And maybe we can share how we ourselves are trying to better our own lives, to SHOW that we mean what we say, not just say we mean what we say. That we prove to each other and to ourselves that we can be happy...

Why is it so easy for me to give advice to someone else in a similar situation as me...but when it comes to chewing on this advice myself i cant stomach it? That when someone else gives me a helping hand up, i take it willingly only to sit back down when they let go?

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I know exactly what you're saying. I find it somewhat hypocritical when you see someone replying to a message telling someone not to kill themselves and then 5 min later you see that same person saying how much they want to die. Kind of like the blind leading the blind. I for one am against suicide, so when I tell someone not to do it, I mean it. Lead by example, you know. I know that not everyone may be capable of doing this, but we should try to lead by example.

When I respond here, I am not just speaking to the other person, but to myself as well, for I can see their pain and feel it, because it is in me as well. And I need to hear, exactly what I'm saying, as much as the other person does.

Good point you have there! I think the reason for this is because many of us think little of ourselves and don't have faith that we can get better.So, we do our best to help others but don't concentrate on ourselves!

For some reason many of us do not think we deserve to be helped, or that somehow the rules are different for us. Even though we know the advice we are giving others is the same thing we need for ourselves, we feel we are incapable of having anything help. We are not worth it. We feel a burden to others and a waste of their time. Yet we don't feel that way when we are helping someone else. Your idea is a good one if we can only accept it for ourselves.